2nd SAT Dip in Row Stirs Debate on 2005 Revision

Last week’s announcement that
composite SAT scores dipped for
the second year in a row since the
college-entrance exam’s overhaul
in 2005 has sparked debate over
the significance, if any, of such
short-term declines.

On a scale of 200 to 800 points,
the average scores dropped 1
point on the critical-reading section,
to 502; 3 points in mathematics,
to 515; and 3 points, to
494, on the writing section, now in
its second year.

“I would say, ‘Hmm, it’s a warning
sign,’ ” said Daniel M. Koretz,
a professor of education at Harvard
University’s graduate school
of education, who downplayed the
importance of year-to-year fluctuations
in the low single digits. “If
we keep getting these kinds of declines,
then that’s something
we’ve got to start worrying
about.”

Laurence Bunin, the general
manager of the SAT program at
the New York City-based College
Board, the test’s sponsor, said at
the Aug. 28 press conference here
that “the scores … are really in an
expected range.” The Educational
Testing Service, of Princeton, N.J.,
administers the SAT for the board.

Wayne J. Camara, the vice president
of research and analysis for
the College Board, called the dip
in scores since last year “not statistically
significant.” But he said
the declines are “primarily attributable
to a larger number of minority
students’ taking the test.”

Minority students accounted for
nearly four in 10 test-takers in
this year’s graduating class, making
it the most ethnically diverse
class of SAT-takers to date.

Moreover, Mr. Camara noted,
this was the first year in which
Maine’s high school seniors
were required to take the SAT to
graduate.

Difficulty the Same?

College Board officials say the
new SAT, which includes not only
the new essay section but also Algebra
2-based questions not found
in the pre-2005 exam, is no harder
than the test’s older version, an assurance
critics question.

SAT Scores

SOURCE: College Board

“After they said [the scores of]
last year were unusual, [this
year’s scores] are starting to look
like a pattern,” said Robert Schaeffer,
a spokesman for the National
Center for Fair & Open
Testing, a Cambridge, Mass.-based testing-watchdog group.

“It’s especially hard to explain
when ACT scores were up in much
the same peer group,” he added,
referring to the other widely used
college-entrance exam, administered
by the Iowa City, Iowa-based
nonprofit ACT Inc. The class
of 2007’s average score on the ACT
rose one-tenth of a percent over
the class of 2006’s.

Mr. Bunin said, however, that
the new SAT test “was very carefully
constructed to equate back”
to the pre-2005 version.

In the class of 2007, 24 percent
of students first learned either a
language other than English or
another language at the same
time they learned English. That’s
up 1 percentage point over last
year’s class, and 7 percentage
points over the class of 1997, the
College Board reported.

The board also reported a 31
percent increase over the past two
years in the number of students
receiving SAT-fee waivers, intended
for students from low-income
families.

“I am encouraged by the greater
numbers of students from all
walks of life who are taking on
the challenge of the SAT and college,”
Gaston Caperton, the president
of the College Board, said in
a statement.

Harvard’s Mr. Koretz also applauded
the increasing diversity
of SAT-takers, and suggested that
score declines needed to be
viewed in that context.

“The kids that are being added
[to the pool of SAT-takers] are
from historically underserved and
lower-scoring groups. That tends
to push scores down,” Mr. Koretz
said.

He posed this analogy: “If a hospital
starts bringing in more and
more old patients and the mortality
rate is still flat, that’s good.
Old people die more.”

Thomas Toch, a co-director of
the Washington-based think tank
Education Sector, also downplayed
the importance of one-year
gains or losses on the SAT—not
only because such minute shifts
rarely fall outside the margin of
error, but also because he doesn’t
believe the exam measures learning
very well.

“SAT scores are largely a function
of family income; they correlate
more strongly with privilege
than any other factor,” he said.
“We should pay more attention to
NAEP [the National Assessment of
Educational Progress], which
measures large samples of students
on more curriculum-specific
matter.”

Gender gaps on all sections also
remained mostly static since last
year. The mean score for boys on
the writing section continued
to lag behind that of girls by
11 points, and the boys’ mean
score on the math section continued
to best the girls’ by 34 points.

Taking the long view, the
mean score on the critical-reading
section, formerly known as the
verbal section, has declined 28
points since the class of 1972 took
the SAT, according to the College
Board. The mean math score has
risen 6 points since then.

Vol. 27, Issue 02, Page 9

Published in Print: September 5, 2007, as 2nd SAT Dip in Row Stirs Debate on 2005 Revision

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